The Magic Castle
by Sipuha
Summary: They run into the woods from walker and men alike, and find out how little and how much they need to live, and not just survive. Day 4 of Bethyl week, "Enchanted".


_I couldn't help it. The prompt enchanted took me right into the Disney Enchanted Movie (a scene from it, actually). Just add a bit of walkers, stir and voila!_

_Day 4 Bethyl week, prompt "enchanted". _

* * *

It is a stroke of pure luck. Daryl feels like they deserve some luck. Everybody is thin and hungry, exhausted from the punishing and unending trek up North Georgia mountains, always up and forward, one step after the other. They have been living on a rare squirrel and roots with berries scavenged along the way, uncannily close to what he survived on that time he got lost as a child.

They kept off the main roads, and avoided any towns like plague. Walkers and humans, no surprise there, tend to be a package deal; and humans like towns. Long gone were the days of regular supply runs – Rick runs the group tightly, with no frivolous distractions allowed. He says no runs keep them light and ready to bolt, and Daryl wholeheartedly agrees. They need to survive first – and they can live later.

And maybe this later is just about to start.

They have left the first 'No Trespassing' signs about two miles behind. Upon seeing it, Daryl spends a good hour trying to understand how he could have screwed up so monumentally. He believes himself to be a good tracker – one of the few things he really prides himself on. But he obviously isn't any good. They are supposed to be in the middle of nowhere – smack in the middle of barely passable wilderness, with no signs of humans for miles in any direction. They've been walking for many weeks, seeing neither walkers nor humans, and right when he's started feeling hope, it is wrenched from him. A sign. Private land. Which means a house, and that means a road, and most definitely a town at the end of that road, and that means they won't be safe.

Blood angrily roars in his ears, black spots dancing all over the map that he is staring at. Rick believes he knows what the hell he's doing, he _trusts _him. They can't just walk back – everyone is spent. Tyreese, the giant oaf, looks downright emaciated, and Sasha barely any better for all the food that he's shared with her. Michonne and Carl have stopped their friendly banter long ago – no strength left for anything but moving one foot in front of the other. Glenn and Maggie have Carol in between them, supporting her weight on the uphill section, and looking ready to drop themselves. Daryl lets out a string of the filthiest swear words he can think off.

"We'll pick it up in the morning," Rick says resignedly.

'We must be at the right place.' Glaring at the map gives Daryl headache, heavy behind the eyes and pulsating in his temples. He needs to figure that mess out. "'M goin' ahead. Will be back before dark." Daryl can feel Beth's heavy stare boring a hole on his back right until the trees completely swallow the group and he no longer hears them. "Leave if I'm not back in time" hangs in the air, unsaid but heard and accepted by all.

"No Trespassing" signs, with leaves and vines covering the rusty bent metal, flaky paint like puffed up hair on an angry cat, only get thicker. No human tracks anywhere near them, and Daryl presses on and on. A couple of miles in, something that might have been the end of a dirt road a long time ago appears. He doesn't bother going down the road.

He gets lucky. With the signs the only thing pointing him anywhere, it's a wonder he stumbles into the right place. Built onto the steep slope, the building just sits there, solar panels like glistening black pools scattered all around, on the rocky sides, and in front of the small clearing, tall grass moving to the wind, and wild grapes snaking up the door and across the biggest window.

For the longest time Daryl can't decide what to do. By all accounts, he should have turned around and started walking back the moment he's seen the house, to forget where it was and never returned. But hope, like the wild vine at the front door, twists all around his chest and squeezes tight. He has to tell Rick.

The next morning, leading the group to the house, Daryl grips his knife with unnecessary force. His palms are sweating; legs are heavy with the anticipation of running. Fleeing. It seems too good to be true. It probably is.

One walker inside – the first walker they've seen in days. And two skeletons, mangled and eaten too fully to transform.

"No bites on that one", Rick muses out loud. Daryl's vine tightens further, making it difficult to breath. "Must've died on his own and butchered the others."

The living room, the hallway, stairs, up, one bedroom, second bedroom, bathroom, stairs, down, down, basement, and up. They methodically go trough every space, looking for threats and coming up empty. The basement, fully stocked, straight out of a post-apocalypse fairytale, is the last straw. He looks at Rick, who nods, and takes the plunge: "It'll do for now". The breath the group was holding sounds like a storm wind.

They are so used to living in the woods that when one of the first nights Carl leans against the wall, flicking the switch, and the light comes on, they get momentarily blinded. They turn it off and spend the next day finding things to cover the windows, and that night they turn the light on. It's dim, only one light in the whole living room, but it feels like magic.

"Thank God for survival nuts," Tyreese murmurs, and Daryl wants to hug the man. He doesn't care how long it lasts. They have survived; maybe it's time to live for a bit.

They start taking over the space and making it theirs. The stench of the walker that was holed up her for who knows how long finally disappears.

On the third morning, Daryl hears someone moving around on the second floor. He knows it can't be a walker – no shuffling, and no way to get past him to the stairs. When he hears water – a tap, maybe even a shower – running, he first thinks he's hallucinating, overtired and wishful, like the dying men in the desert. It keeps on running.

He needs to see it. Suddenly, his throat is dry and he is so thirsty, the only thing he wants is water. His skin feels taught over his bones, cracking at the seams, scars itchy and uncomfortable on his back. He wants to run up the stairs, but he first checks that Carl is awake and on guard on the porch. Then, he slowly takes the stairs one step at a time. He can still hear the water running. 'Thank God for off-the-grid nuts', a wild refrain running through his head. He knocks on the bathroom door and is already pulling it open when he hears Beth happily chirp: "Come in!"

She's just getting out of the shower – the shower that works – and her skin is wet and flush from the warm shower – and the heater works, and this is enough to stop Daryl in his tracks.

"Oh, good morning, Daryl," she is not perturbed in the slightest. The sound jerks to action, and he tries to turn away, as he can't help but notice how perfect her calves are, strong and thin after their long months on the run. She keeps on going, "So thoughtful of you to check on me!"

He starts telling her he's here for the water, and then he sees the mischievous glint in her eyes, and he realizes Beth knows, and is teasing him about it. He hasn't had a warm shower in almost as long as he can remember, and she looks so perfect with the beige fluffy towel wrapped around her, that he's willing to let that slide.

"I hope you had nice dreams," and it all feels like a dream, so he blurts out, "I think I'm still in one."

He tries to look anywhere but at her, but the steam carries the distinctly Beth smell, and he can't escape her even by closing his eyes. She stands in the doorway, torn between what he should do, and what he wants- needs – to do, when shares, "This is the most magical room I've been to since the walkers appeared. Where does the water come from?"

He can tell that now she is genuinely interested, even perplexed. Most tanks emptied out rather fast, with no electricity to power the pumps, and none to heat the water. She wrings her hands for some reason, in the anticipation of his reply, and they are so elegant, small wrists that just beg to be touched. Her scars are a part of her, also delicate, almost a medal of honor, and he longs to run his finger up the raised tissue.

"Uh… Oh, well, the, uh, water comes from the pipes-"

"And where do the pipes get it?"

"- uh, I dunno, I think, hmm, from the pipes, yeah, a tank or somethin'." He is tongue-tied, and flustered, and it's hot from the steam and her looking at him like that. She's happy – 'from the shower,' he keeps on repeating, – her smile wide and open, listening carefully to him making an ass of himself.

"Oh, well, it is magical." Beth just stands there, and Daryl realizes he somehow ended up between the tab and her body, and his only escape route is blocked by her presence. She doesn't seem to pay him any mind, working her hand through the notes in her hair, and he desperately reaches for something – anything – to say, when they hear Judith starting to fuss in the bedroom down the hall.

Carol is walking around, trying to sooth her, and he can her them through the thin wall. That makes him even more uncomfortable if that is possible. Judith doesn't seem particularly impressed by Carol's efforts. Daryl understands. If he could choose between Beth sweet soft voice, singing him to sleep, and Carol's admittedly nice and loving embrace, he would cry his lungs out to get Beth. He's not a baby though, and he can't choose. He has to let Beth get to the bossy girl before Carol busts in on them.

He grabs a rag from the rack next to the sink, and starts to mop up the water from the floor, trying to work his way back to the door. Beth moves out of his way, but her feet and the ceramic tiles are both wet, and she slips, grabbing at him for support and pulling him down. This girl will be the fall of him, literally. At the last minute, he manages to cushion here fall with his own body. Daryl feels a silly sense of accomplishment on doing such a gentlemanly thing, but it is fleeting. It just takes him a moment to realize that she is now straddling his hips, her long hair tickling his nose and cheek, and long neck enticingly stretched right in front of his eyes. She is giggling – the situation obviously amuses her – and he would be amused, if her laugh didn't shake her whole body, tightly pressed against him, and he could feel his blood dangerously swirling right under the skin, pushing him into her. 'It surely can't get any worse,' he thinks, and is proven wrong the same moment, when Carol's shrill voice cuts into his mind, still foggy with the Beth smelling steam.

"What is that?" – Carol jabs her finger at them, seemingly unable to give a name to 'that', and Judith burbles happily at the sight of her preferred caretaker.

"This is nothin', t's nothin'" – he hurries to answer, when Beth gets off of him. He feels surprisingly bereft at the loss of her warm weight, and he falls silent as she takes over the conversation.

"Oh, Carol, this is just the most wonderful house – like a magic castle for us. The water works, and it is hot, Carol, hot!"

As Beth pulls Carol down the hall, while the other woman shoots him a dirty and unconvinced look, he can't bring himself to care. He is about to take a hot shower, and this morning was one of the best in his whole life.

"A magic castle indeed," – he thinks, pulling of his dirt crusted clothes on the wet floor of the bathroom, and turning the water on. The whole room still smells like her, and he realizes there are many things that he missed doing in the shower.


End file.
